Opening

When I raided as Survival during Cataclysm, opening on a boss was a bit easier. We didn't have any additional abilities like we do in this expansion. I'm currently playing Survival in Mists of Pandaria. Keep in mind that I don't get to raid often, so my item level is only around 465; the best I am able to do is Raid Finder and even then, I only have access to Mogu'shan Vaults. My armory is in my signature if you're curious.

- Explosive Shot
- Murder of Crows - this usually becomes delayed due to it's cost.

When I get to this point, I am usually around 70-80 focus. I prioritize Explosive Shot over everything so after I use it at this point, it's usually 1-2 Cobra Shot casts for Murder of Crows to become available.

I started playing my hunter a couple weeks ago after having transitioned to warrior for several weeks of Mists of Pandaria. Maybe someone has a better way of opening? With this opener and in my gear, I usually break 100k DPS and float around 60k depending on the encounter.

I'm running different talents (Lynx Rush, Thrill of the Hunt) so I can't remark on the Murder of Crows thing, but I can offer this - try opening with Glaive Toss first to try and proc trinkets/scope asap. One will proc more often than you think.

You wanna stack the things with all the other abilities you got running now. (You should have Stampede and other cooldowns lined for Bloodlust and such). Rapid Fire means more focus regen and attacks done by your pet, Dire Beast pet and Stampede pets (which in turn do more damage because you should also have Bestial Wrath up at this point.

As for the ability you use when you open, it doesn't really matter, as long as you make sure to use DoTs and such before you start bursting, as to get more damaging shots out during your trinket / cooldown uptime.

With 463 ilevel he won't be sub-gcd on cobra shots. And remember with marked for death glyph you don't need to preapply hunters mark. Make sure you open with your signature shots (you never want to delay these as they will give youthe most) and then go down the list of stampede murder glaive and dire beast. If it's a heavy aoe fight you might consider barrage as it can be useful. Also consider bm as well for single target fights. Today's hunters are switching surv for aoe fights and bm for single target (for the most part)

With 463 ilevel he won't be sub-gcd on cobra shots. And remember with marked for death glyph you don't need to preapply hunters mark. Make sure you open with your signature shots (you never want to delay these as they will give youthe most) and then go down the list of stampede murder glaive and dire beast. If it's a heavy aoe fight you might consider barrage as it can be useful. Also consider bm as well for single target fights. Today's hunters are switching surv for aoe fights and bm for single target (for the most part)

Either way it doesn't matter because Cobra Shots makes up for a retardedly small % of our damage done. Why waste a shitton of Stampede pet attacks (and Dire Beast attacks, and personal pet attacks) just because you got this OCD with sub-GCD Cobras that makes no sense anyway?

I do this, and it works well enough for me. Currently I only use SV on fights with AoE, and thus I use ToTH instead of DB, but I'll put a DB in there for illustration, since it only costs a GCD and not focus (which is the primary concern of the opening, imo).

SrS
RF+ES
BA
CoSx2
AMoC
this should put you around 18ish focus.
GT
DB
Stampede
ES off CD just from natural focus regen + SrS focus regen + RF regen, if LnL has procced, ESx3 (either way it costs the focus of one ES), may need an extra CoS here,
Readiness
ES/CoS into ES
BA on a second target if applicable, otherwise go into normal rotation with RF when the first one wears off.
CoS into AMoC on 2nd target if applicable, otherwise wait for the 30 seconds to be up before reapplying AMoC.

The SrS is kind of important in the opening because not only does it hit hard now, but @ 15 focus cost, and 1 focus per second, you'll gain the 15 focus it cost over the course of the shot, making it net-neutral. Not to mention if you put it up early, you just have X many seconds more of it during the fight than you would if you delayed it X seconds. In a SV opener you're going to have to CoS, unlike BM, so this just extends the SrS, which effectively extends the SrS passive regen and saves you the 15 focus of reapplying, so after one CoS, the shot becomes focus positive.

I'm still doing a lot of experimenting. During Cataclysm, Explosive Shot arguably had priority over everything. Now it seems that everything takes precedence over Explosive Shot. That's going to take some getting used to, considering the fact that During Cataclysm, we didn't have much to work with in terms of rotational abilities. Here's a few openers that I've been toying around with...

So they changed Explosive Shot. Apparently we're able to do Explosive Shot > Explosive Shot > Explosive Shot without clipping? When I do it, I'm still missing a tick. When I wait for the GCD to finish and do the same, I get all nine ticks. But that seems... eh?

During Cataclysm, you could still do Explosive Shot back-to-back and not lose a tick if you waited for the GCD, but received the same result as the first image if you didn't. p.s. - I'm not good with the technical stuff. Go easy on me, 'kay?

I still find myself following the options of handling it during Cataclysm.

I'm also assuming that when other hunters tell me they're using Thrill of the Hunt for Survival, that they're only using Survival for AoE-heavy encounters. The reason I use Dire Beast is because I use Survival regardless of the nature of the encounter but I do use Thrill of the Hunt on encounters that require AoE. I just can't seem to get the hang of Beast Mastery. I actually seem to do worse as Beast Mastery and I've got the right idea on how to play it.

I'm still doing a lot of experimenting. During Cataclysm, Explosive Shot arguably had priority over everything. Now it seems that everything takes precedence over Explosive Shot. That's going to take some getting used to, considering the fact that During Cataclysm, we didn't have much to work with in terms of rotational abilities. Here's a few openers that I've been toying around with...

So they changed Explosive Shot. Apparently we're able to do Explosive Shot > Explosive Shot > Explosive Shot without clipping? When I do it, I'm still missing a tick. When I wait for the GCD to finish and do the same, I get all nine ticks. But that seems... eh?

During Cataclysm, you could still do Explosive Shot back-to-back and not lose a tick if you waited for the GCD, but received the same result as the first image if you didn't. p.s. - I'm not good with the technical stuff. Go easy on me, 'kay?

I still find myself following the options of handling it during Cataclysm.

I'm also assuming that when other hunters tell me they're using Thrill of the Hunt for Survival, that they're only using Survival for AoE-heavy encounters. The reason I use Dire Beast is because I use Survival regardless of the nature of the encounter but I do use Thrill of the Hunt on encounters that require AoE. I just can't seem to get the hang of Beast Mastery. I actually seem to do worse as Beast Mastery and I've got the right idea on how to play it.